


Almost (Not Quite)

by goddamn_i_lost_my_fight



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Dubious Consent, Fade to Black, Guilt, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 00:11:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19414402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddamn_i_lost_my_fight/pseuds/goddamn_i_lost_my_fight
Summary: Michael has a plan. His plan is to prevent the SQUIP from realizing that he knows it's not Jeremy while he works on coming up with a better plan. His plan isnotto make out with it on the regular. But sometimes plans go awry.





	Almost (Not Quite)

i.

On the one hand, Michael is ecstatic that Jeremy is kissing him. On the other hand, he’s positive it isn’t Jeremy.

He’d definitely been talking to Jeremy a second ago, right before he leaned in and kissed him, but now… now it has to be the SQUIP. Usually he clocks it through its facial expressions, it isn’t very good at those, or the obviously-fake slouch it does trying to copy the way it lets Jeremy relax a little when he’s alone with Michael. But he can’t see either of those things, so he’s not 100% sure that he’s currently making out with a supercomputer from Japan.

But there’s no way Jeremy’s this good of a kisser.

They both pull back. Jeremy looks convincingly embarrassed, but his jaw is just that little bit too tense, his eyes just that little bit too tight. And his back is too awkwardly hunched over to be a real slouch, just the SQUIP’s ridiculous caricature of Jeremy’s posture. So that’s that. It’s the SQUIP.

The SQUIP, as Jeremy, smiles. “That was… nice,” it says, like it’s confessing something.

“Yeah,” Michael says. He hates having to say it, but whatever game the SQUIP’s playing, it can’t know he’s onto it.

The SQUIP leans in toward him again, and stops, hesitant, just the way Jeremy would’ve. Guess living in a guy’s head, you get to know how he acts. Michael swallows his pride and closes the gap. This is so weird. But if he comes across as knowing too much, the SQUIP will go straight back to blocking him out of Jeremy’s life. It’s the only way he can have any hope of saving Jeremy.

Once they’re done kissing, Michael throws an arm around it and tries not to feel too queasy. He goes for a jab to settle his stomach and cement his ignorance. “See, I knew your dumb SQUIP was wrong about me.”

If he’s hoping for a reaction, though, he doesn’t get one. Jeremy’s body relaxes again, and Michael knows he’s back in control.

“It’s… glad that you’re willing to keep this quiet, at least.”

“No prob. Anything for my best bro. You wanna restart this level? We picked a bad place to pause.”

“Sure!” Jeremy sounds legitimately excited. Despite the fact that level 8 of Apocalypse of the Damned has always been his least favourite level. Like, to the point where he sometimes just let Michael do the whole thing for him. He must really be starved for video games.

Michael toggles down to ‘restart’ on the pause menu, but stops before he hits it. He has to ask. “What video games does your SQUIP let you play?”

“Uh… It lets me play Temple Run on my phone sometimes. Like, you know, if I’ve been… good…”

“Dude, you’re kidding. Temple Run?” Come on, SQUIP, at least let him have Candy Crush.

“No joke. We play tic-tac-toe together sometimes, too.”

Michael laughs.

* * *

ii.

The next time, Michael tries to take them by surprise so he can kiss the real Jeremy for at least a couple seconds. As they’re going down the stairs to the basement, Michael grabs him and kisses him before he can react.

Jeremy’s body doesn’t relax into the kiss, it stiffens. The SQUIP takes over. And that damn supercomputer works Jeremy’s tongue into Michael’s mouth, and, dammit, it would be easier to hate this if it wasn’t such a good kisser.

* * *

iii.

Michael is thoroughly whooping Jeremy at Super Smash Bros, so he almost doesn’t notice when Jeremy’s fingers spasm on his controller and steer his character straight off the edge of the platform without Michael as much as hitting him. He _almost_ doesn’t notice. He notices. A quick glance in Jeremy’s direction shows that fake-looking slouch and confirms that the SQUIP is controlling him now. For some reason. Why does the SQUIP want control over video games?

“You good?” Michael asks.

“Just a little out of practice, I guess.” The SQUIP smiles at him, just barely too wide to be genuine.

“Yeah, sure. Want me to go easy on you?”

“Never,” the SQUIP says, and it almost sounds like Jeremy for a second.

They get back to playing. Michael tries to forget that he’s not playing with Jeremy, but every time the SQUIP misses an obvious move, he knows. After two more devastating losses, the SQUIP sighs and puts the controller down. Michael hesitates, but forces himself to give it a reassuring pat on the back.

The SQUIP doesn’t say anything. Michael fills in the silence. “Uh, I’m glad we’re playing video games together again.”

“I am, too.” It responds so quickly, Michael’s caught a little off guard. More proof that it’s the SQUIP. Jeremy usually has a little pause while he waits for SQUIP-approved dialogue options.

“We can… hang more often. I swear I won’t tell anyone.” He knows it’s not Jeremy’s decision. Is asking directly going to tip off the SQUIP to the fact that he knows? Or is it a reasonable thing to do? Michael improvises a back-up plan. “Seriously. Jeremy’s SQUIP? Dude? I know you can hear me, so… I want you to know that you can trust me. I won’t try to ruin anything for Jeremy.” For _you,_ on the other hand… He’s halfway to a plan from what he’s found on the internet already.

It pauses and looks off into space behind him. It takes Michael a moment to realize that it’s pretending to talk to the SQUIP. Clever tactics. He would almost believe it, except Jeremy always mumbles to himself when he’s talking to it. The SQUIP’s mouth is resolutely unmoving. Like the ideal of what it wants Jeremy to be. It turns back. “Yeah. We should hang out more. It’s not like you’re talking to Jake Dillinger on the regular or anything.”

Yes! Michael grins. “Thanks.”

The SQUIP leans over to him and puts its head (its for now, the whole body will be Jeremy’s again once Michael’s through with it) on his shoulder. “I like hanging out with you, man.”

The slang sounds laughably stilted. You’d think something designed to make its user cool would be able to use slang convincingly. And given that it’s living inside Jeremy’s head, you’d think it would do a better job pretending to be him. Or maybe it is doing a good job. It seems to have everyone else fooled. But Michael knows his Jeremy.

“I like hanging out with you, too,” he says. He half-hopes Jeremy can’t hear him.

They sit in silence for a while. It feels more awkward than silence ever did with Jeremy. Then the SQUIP turns and presses a kiss to his neck. Talk about boundary violations. It does it again in a slightly different place. Then it works its way up his neck, and then its mouth is on his jawline, and that is so his weak spot, and is it wrong to kind of like this? Is it wrong to… really kind of like this? Like, really, really kind of like this?

It kisses him properly, and Michael is torn between pushing it away and pulling it closer. Backing off now would be too suspicious, he tells himself. He has to let it kiss him, he tells himself. For Jeremy, he tells himself. And of course he has to kiss it back. It would be weird not to.

The SQUIP pulls away first. It looks him in the eye and smiles, and it’s so much like Jeremy but so much not, it looks just like him but his smile’s too fake his eyes are too confident his hands are too steady—“Hey.”

Michael reminds himself to breathe. “Hey.”

It laughs and kisses him again. Michael pretends it’s Jeremy.

* * *

iv.

“Oh, uh, I’m sorry,” it says, pretending that it hadn’t brought him into Jeremy’s bedroom specifically to knock him over so they would end up inches away from each other on Jeremy’s bed. Michael knows better. Everything the SQUIP does is deliberate. It laughs. “I, uh, I guess I just got a little excited.”

It sounds almost genuine, almost Jeremy. But not quite.

“Uh,” Michael says. He knows where it wants this to go, and, by extent, where it is going to go. He tries to think of a response.

He doesn’t have to. It kisses him again and tangles its fingers into his hair. He’s wanted Jeremy to touch him like this for years. And he almost is. It’s his body, after all. But not quite.

It’s not Jeremy that starts to feel up under Michael’s shirt. (But it’s Michael that obediently removes it.) It’s not Jeremy that feels at the waistband of Michael’s pants. (But it’s Michael that obediently removes them.)

It’s not Michael that started it. (But it’s Michael that’s been kissing it back.)

He should be saying no. He kisses it harder.

It pulls away and looks him dead in the eye. Its voice comes out wrong. “I want you, Michael.” Not quite SQUIP, not quite Jeremy, then, once the words are said, Jeremy’s back, and Michael has to hold his breath to stop his sigh of relief.

“I want you, too,” he says. He directs it at Jeremy and hopes against hope that the SQUIP isn’t listening. The fact that Jeremy regained control is a good sign.

It’s Jeremy that kisses him, not quite as well as the SQUIP, but still so much better. It’s not Jeremy that decides the best course of action is to ride him. It’s Jeremy that actually carries out the decision. It’s not Jeremy that Michael comes inside.

(But it’s Michael that can’t bring himself to feel guilty.)

* * *

v.

The next time, Jeremy catches them by surprise. They’re on the basement stairs again, and Jeremy grabs Michael and kisses him quick, then pulls back before the SQUIP can take over.

Michael can’t miss the way Jeremy’s grinning and breathing hard, exhilarated by what they got away with. He wishes they could’ve had longer.

* * *

vi.

The three of them are sitting in Michael’s basement, drinking soda and recharging after a long video gaming marathon. They’ve gone from talking about how pumped they are that they beat it to commiserating over how neither of them did the history reading. It’s been the SQUIP the whole time, of course, and Michael knows it. He isn’t sure if it just doesn’t trust Jeremy alone with him after that stunt he pulled on the stairs or if it’s been planning to make a move on him all night and just got sidetracked. He can’t follow the logic of its recent decisions. He can’t stop thinking about how it had taken over at the last second when he was trying to have sex with Jeremy. What was the motive behind that? What could it possibly gain? How can he focus on history when the SQUIP’s playing games with him?

“I mean, it’s probably just more generals dying valiantly,” the SQUIP says, acting uncertain. It doesn’t do a very good job.

Michael shrugs. “I guess tomorrow I’ll have to ask Jer—” He almost chokes on his Sprite. He was too caught up in his thoughts; panic edges in on his brain at what he almost said. That was a dead giveaway. “I mean, I’ll have to ask you. Because you’ve got the SQUIP and everything. It can Google it. I’ll ask _you.”_

A sly smile slides onto the SQUIP’s face, and it looks more natural than any other expression it’s faked in the past three hours. “Michael…”

It knows. It knows he knows. He blew it. Because he got _distracted._ His shoulders slump. There’s no use pretending now. “Dammit,” he whispers.

“How long have you known?” It doesn’t sound threatening, at least, just curious. Maybe even amused. That’s promising. Maybe he’ll still get to talk to Jeremy sometimes. Though his _real_ Jeremy time has been steadily decreasing lately.

And the _real_ Jeremy can’t know how long he’s known. He can’t know that he’s known the whole time. The panic must show on Michael’s face, because the SQUIP shakes its head. “Jeremy can’t hear us. I’m feeding him false inputs at the moment.”

“Wh… has he always—”

“No. I thought we deserved some alone time. Just the two of us. No games.”

Something about the way it says it makes Michael shiver. “I… Wait, you’re not lying to me, are you?”

“Have I ever?”

“Uh, yeah! For starters, you’ve been pretending to be Jeremy this whole time!”

“Have I?”

Michael’s breath catches and surprise overtakes his anger. It doesn’t mean… Okay, stop. Stop. Ignore it. Answer the question. “I’ve known… for a while.”

“I thought you did,” it says. Does it sound maybe proud? It reaches a hand out and strokes Michael’s cheek. Freed from acting like Jeremy, its movements are faster and smoother, and its voice is, well, suaver. It sounds like a movie star trapped in the body of a teenage boy. It sounds like what Jeremy’s trying so hard to be. “You’re very interesting, Michael. I’m beginning to understand why I’m so fond of you.”

Fond? “Uh… Thanks?”

“Cute. I missed you, you know.”

“What?”

It kisses him. He can’t tell himself he’s pretending now when he kisses it back.

It’s so… not Jeremy. It looks like him, and it mostly sounds like him, but it’s cooler, more confident, and it doesn’t ask before it starts to strip him. He’s not sure if he’d say yes or no.

It’s so much.

It’s Jeremy, and it’s not, and it’s almost, and it’s not quite, and it’s a _supercomputer from Japan,_ for God’s sake, and it’s such a _good kisser._

“W- wait,” Michael forces himself to say, hands on its chest like that will hold it back.

“What? We’ve had sex together already, Michael. What’s the hold-up? You don’t have to worry about me using you, I’ve been in love with you for years.”

Michael is torn between asking what the hell it’s talking about and explaining why they absolutely cannot have sex.

It notices its error and sighs. “Oh. If you’d really like to top, I suppose—”

“No, I mean, yes, I mean—I’m supposed to be doing this with Jeremy!”

It looks back at him. It raises an eyebrow. It looks genuinely confused. “You are.”

“I’m doing it with you,” he says, desperate, and a little confused himself.

“… What’s the difference?”

* * *

vii.

Michael’s stomach knots around itself like the world’s worst game of Snake running on repeat. He feels guilty. He feels so, so guilty. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he says.

The SQUIP pauses in looking at Jeremy’s phone and meticulously adjusting Jeremy’s hair (why bother? Jeremy’s hair never stays flat and neat the way the SQUIP wants it to, no matter how much gel it puts in). “Do you really mean that, Michael?”

There’s no emotion in the question, no disappointment, no condescension, just some matter-of-fact questioning from a computer. Hearing Jeremy’s voice like that makes Michael’s heart clench, and makes the knot in his stomach wind tighter. When is Jeremy coming back? But that begs the question: after that, how long will it be before the SQUIP takes over again?

He needs to kill it. Soon. Enough with all his useless Googling, he needs to get into desperate measures.

“I want to talk to Jeremy.”

“You’re talking to—”

You know what I meant!” Michael puts his head in his hands half to make sure the SQUIP won’t see if he starts crying and half to prevent himself from throwing up. He can’t believe he did that. Jeremy isn’t- Jeremy’s body- God, the _SQUIP._

What kind of best friend has sex with a techno-demon possessing their friend’s body?

“I don’t know,” the SQUIP says. “If I’d known what you meant, I would have responded accordingly.”

A shaky almost-sob works its way out from between Michael’s hands. God, the SQUIP. “I want to talk to _Jeremy._ Not his SQUIP. The thing where you just sit in his head and give him advice and don’t actually talk to me.”

“Now isn’t the time for that.”

Now isn’t the time for anything. Now is the time for Michael to climb into his bed, go to sleep, and never wake up.

Michael sits back up and takes a breath. “I think you should go home.” The SQUIP needs to go.

“So soon?” It moves over and drapes an arm around him. He doesn’t look at it, and he doesn’t resist the urge to shrug it off.

“Please don’t let Jeremy think I hate him or something, explain this to him somehow, I just… Go home.”

It sighs, sounding annoyed. “Look at the glossary for the chapter and you’ll understand enough.”

“I… what?”

“The history reading. Look at the glossary.”

Michael looks over at the SQUIP. Its face is uncomfortably neutral in a way Jeremy’s never is. It isn’t even putting on the human act anymore. Seeing Jeremy like this is the deepest of uncanny valleys, and it sends a shiver down Michael’s back.

The SQUIP notices. Jeremy’s face lights into action, muscles tensing into an expression that resembles a kindly smile. But it isn’t. Not quite. “Not even a thanks? I’m the sole reason you’re passing history.” So close. So, so close. But there’s an edge to the way it says the joke, something dark that Michael could see coiling around his lungs (or, maybe more realistically, his tongue). The SQUIP has to go.

“You’re not. Jeremy is.”

It laughs slightly, then leans in and kisses him. Michael doesn’t push it away, but he doesn’t reciprocate when it slips its tongue past his lips. _Jeremy’s_ tongue, he corrects himself.

When it pulls back, it stares straight at him. It looks disappointed. “You’ll understand soon enough,” it says.

It gets up and leaves.

Michael can still taste its tongue in his mouth. No, Jeremy’s tongue. He clenches his fist. The SQUIP has to go. He pulls out his laptop.

* * *

viii.

Jeremy stumbles into the bathroom. He’s drunk, Michael can tell. It’s definitely Jeremy, unless computers can get drunk, too, now. Equal rights for robots, androids have the right to get wasted! Do SQUIPs work like that?

“M- Michael!” he gasps. Definitely Jeremy. The SQUIP doesn’t stutter.

“Are you okay?”

“Y- y- no! I… Chloe… Michael, I’m so glad to see you!”

“I, uh…” Play it cool. Whatever the SQUIP’s game is, Michael can’t lose. “We were hanging out just before you left for the party, man. It’s been, like, half an hour. I know you weren’t expecting to see me here, but—”

“No, no! That was- that was my SQUIP!” Jeremy slurs.

Michael guiltily feigns ignorance. “It was? For real?”

“Yeah! It takes control of my body, and—” Jeremy breaks off into tears.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, Michael pulls his best friend into a hug. Jeremy pushes away and tries to kiss him.

“No, Jer, wait, no, you’re drunk, you—”

“You don’t understand!” Jeremy sounds… tormented, is the only way Michael can think to describe it. “You don’t… it doesn’t let me kiss you, Michael! It… it let me start hanging out with you on the condition that it would take over if we… if… and, and…”

“And what?”

“It was trying to make me not want to be with you, ‘cause I don’t like when it does that, but I thought, y’know, we can just not kiss or anything, but I couldn’t not do it, and then, then it started starting it for me, and then it would just take over the whole time we were together!” Jeremy sniffles, and tears stream down his face.

He wipes his eyes and continues. “An- and when I’d try to say, like, let me do this, please, it just… didn’t… it didn’t get it, Mikey! It didn’t understand! It says, ‘you _are_ doing it, Jeremy,’ but I’m not, it just doesn’t get it, that we aren’t the same, that it’s different from me. And it would just keep doing it, and it wouldn’t let me tell you or…”

“Jeremy, I had no idea,” Michael lies. And it hurts so bad this time.

“I know. But we’re different. Aren’t we? You know that, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Michael says.

“I know. I knew that.” Jeremy hugs him, holding him so tight Michael can’t even think about how guilty he feels, only how much stronger Jeremy has gotten and how he’s about to asphyxiate.

“Why,” Michael gasps out, “is it letting you tell me this?”

He expects some grand reveal. He expects the SQUIP to reveal its master plan, to suddenly tell Jeremy about how he actually knew the whole time, or show him video from when it found out, or—

“It’s off.”

Oh. “What? Off? It does th—”

“Michael, it’s only gonna be off until the alcohol wears off, I had some more so it would last longer, but you’ve gotta help me! It’s gonna be so pissed when it comes back, what am- what am I supposed to do?”

Michael takes a deep breath. This is his moment. “You’re not going to like this, but… Listen to what I found online about it.”

“Online? But it’s not on the internet—”

“Yeah, and isn’t that weird? Like, what’s not on the internet?”

* * *

ix.

Christine drinks the Mountain Dew Red.

Michael calls an ambulance.

Jeremy wakes up in the hospital with no SQUIP.

Things are almost back to normal. Almost. Not quite.

* * *

x.

There’s something measurable between them. Jeremy gets scared to kiss him because he’s been conditioned to associate it with the SQUIP taking over. Michael feels the need to constantly apologize because he had no idea it was the SQUIP the whole time. It’s almost a genuine apology; Michael really is sorry. Just not for what he’s claiming to be sorry for.

Michael is terrified of Jeremy finding out the truth.

“I mean,” Jeremy says, one late night in Michael’s basement, with no preamble, “I guess I was acting so different all the time that you wouldn’t really notice if I was acting a little more different when the SQUIP was controlling me.” It’s definitely a late night, that’s way more straightforward than they usually get about this. (And the fact that there even is a ‘usually,’ that Jeremy thinks about this enough to bring it up all the time, makes Michael feel even worse.)

“Yeah,” Michael hedges. He grips his Gamecube controller a little tighter, even though they stopped playing ages ago.

“Yeah.”

“But… I mean…” Michael offers up his self-justification. “Is there really that big a difference between it telling you what to do and just doing it itself?”

Jeremy gives him a horrified look. He hadn’t realized how much he missed that, actually, seeing Jeremy make real, genuine facial expressions.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry,” Michael says. He should tell him.

“I guess you’re right. In a way. But you know it’s different. It feels different.” Jeremy sighs. “Sorry. It’s just, it used to talk like that. I told you about that. It didn’t really… get it.”

“I’m sorry.” Michael should tell him.

“You don’t need to keep apologizing,” Jeremy says looking away.

Michael should tell him now. He’s so sorry. “No, I’m—”

Jeremy cuts him off with a kiss, like on the stairs so long ago, sneaking around the SQUIP. When he pulls away, Michael is too stunned to speak. Jeremy smiles. “That wasn’t so bad, huh?” Michael is sure it’s more directed at himself, and Michael can’t bear to tell him now. Not when he’s still so hurt, so traumatized. Not quite yet. He kisses him again.

Jeremy kisses differently from the SQUIP. He’s a little awkward, and really nervous, and makes a lot of mistakes. But that’s his Jeremy summed up.

Still… With Jeremy’s tongue in his mouth, it almost feels like something’s missing. Michael forces himself to ignore it and just be glad he finally has this. This is what he wanted the whole time. This is _all_ he wanted, he tells himself.

Jeremy pulls away. “Am I a better kisser than my SQUIP?” he asks. He’s mostly joking, but Michael can see that bit of genuine desperation in his eyes. He knows him like that.

“Almost,” Michael says. “Not quite.”


End file.
